Rationing didn’t end until the 50’s but it may surprise you to know that supplies to Britain from the USA on lease lend during WWII were not finally paid until 2006. You may find it interesting to find videos about The Blitz when British cities endured nightly bombings for over 8 months from 7 Sept 1940 to 11 May 1941
Some back combing and Brylcreem and that quiff would soon be licked into shape. My Mum was born in ‘46 and had quite vivid memories of playing in the bomb site rubble next to her primary school.
I am much younger than that and I too played in bomb sites. We used to think we had found treasure when in fact it was probably shattered toilets and crockery!
My father was a teddy boy. With the brylcream hair and winkle picker shoes. And lovely suits. Very handsome little bugger in his younger days. Rest his soul.😊❤
@@barbara184 Oh thank you so much for that! MY much older brother was in the RAF during the occupation of Berlin after the war and when he had leave he would bring bitter-lemon Spangles to me as a treat. He also bought me a German electric train set which I had for years and years. He died a few years ago miserably of Parkingson's disease. Hey ho.
My mother’s younger sister was terrified when she first saw a banana 🍌 😂. Belfast was blitzed too and children were evacuated as was my mother and her family. My grandfather was an ARP warden and stayed behind and saw the building behind their home which was a tall building homing the military ladies bombed and they all perished. Lots of places were targets for the Germans not just London. My late uncles were all Teddy boys and the youngest couldn’t get his to slick back so his sister permed the front. 😂
My dad was a scouser born in 1934. As a kid, he and his mates played on the bomb sites and collected and swapped shrapnel. Far from being traumatised, they saw it as a big adventure… I suppose they didn’t know any different. This film is a little London-centric, Liverpool was badly bombed being a strategic port city as were many large towns and cities such as Coventry. The whole country suffered from the effects of war in Europe. Many bomb sites were not cleared until the 1970s and 80s.
And they were mostly replaced with concrete buildings, known typically as brutalist architecture. Coventry has lots of it still, including its station which is now listed. Erith near where I grew up in South London was almost entirely concrete by the 70s and 80s, not giving way until the 2000s in a lot of cases, with the high rise flats coming down.
@@bionicgeekgrrl Born in Thamesmead and now in Abbey Wood, all those building are being/have been replaced but what's been put in their place is just as ugly unfortunately.
Brylcreem, a little dab a'l do yer, Brylcreem, you'll look so debonair. Brylcreem, the girls 'll all pursue yer, They love to get their finger in your hair.
Dear JJLA, that was your best vid so far by some margin. I loved you messing about with your hair but your understanding analyses and it's parallels of the right here and now is creatively expressed. Your description is a funny and articulate entertaining way and is very appealing. I needed this so very much today. This is the reason I watch your output everyday, this is much appreciated and thank you so very much for making my day and providing a meaningful difference, especially at a time when we need to know, all lives on this small planet matter.🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉xxx
My mother grew up in London during the war. Things she saw and lived through would warp anyone, like a lot of the children who lived in London during this time she died of cancer in her forty’s.
Spike Milligan's Uncle suggested to Air Marshal Harris that we should drop wooden mushrooms on Germany to prove that after 5 days of war British Craftsmanship still flourished. They were returned with a note saying dropping wooden mushrooms may cause unnecessary injury - Spike Milligan in "Hitlar and my part in his downfall."
The bombed out sites were still around in the 70s in London. I remember from my childhood. It wasn't until the 1980s that they were finally redeveloped .
That was interesting..it only clicked in my brain that Teddy came from Edward from watching this...lol. I hope you react to the next part with the Mods and Rockers.
Some of the acts from the fifties you saw Marty Wilde - Kim Wilde's dad - Kids in America etc. Joe Brown - I think he was an influence on the Beatles along with Lonny Donagan. He is Sam Brown's dad - hit with "Stop", she also appeared a lot on Jools Holland shows as backing vocals. Tommy Steel - Britain's first Rock & Roll star, later actor and went into West End, famous for the role of Kipps in Half a Sixpence. The 2 i''s bar (coffee) was a famous place in these scenes.
My Dad was a Teddy Boy, and I remember him waxing lyrical about his D.A. haircut, which stood for Ducks Arse, and described how it looked from the back.🦆 Pretty nifty in his Winklepickers on the dance floor too.
Loved this video reminded me of what we studied in GCSE history, it was our coursework module 1950's & 60's. That was when I learnt about The Beatles too (I had heard of them but never knew much or heard their songs, to my knowledge. Although I quickly realised I had heard some of their music just didn't realise it was theirs. My parents aren't really Beatles fans).
Another entertaining watch, thank you. Even when I have already watched the clip, you add just the right sauce to make it fresh and new. I do believe I could watch you reacting to a fork.
mine was a zephyr, rusty POS never worked when i was going on dates, thing would only start after you punched the dash a couple times, glad i moved on from that to a mk1 mexico
Yes there was rationing in the early fifties. I lived in a small town in Yorkshire and remember, when running an errand for my mother, having to take a ration card to the grocery store, along with the money, to get what she wanted. I remember seeing a couple of Teddy Boys when I was walking to school. I gave them a wide berth because I associated them with violence. Don’t know why, as a nine year old, I would know to be wary, but I was.
That was fascinating. I never knew of the connection between "Teddy Boys"and "Edwardian". I can remember Teddy boys in the late 50s and early 60s hanging around in cities, but I never saw any in the more provincal smaller towns. There was no mention of the winklepicker shoes, perhaps that was more of a Mod thing.
Another subculture from the mid 70s and still surviving mostly underground until today is the Northern Soul scene, a good documentary to watch is 'Northern Soul - This Is England'.
From an old Mod, who had a Ted next door Brothel Creepers 3/4 coats bright colours blue or maroon or red with velvet collars and pocket flaps and two doors away a teddy girl, girly girl that is, who wore poodle skirts pencil skirts and 3/4 length 'Capris' slacks with stiletto heels! I remember to this day hearing click clack click clack as she often ran for the bus - - it sort of merged with the Mods which I became - - though with Rocker friends so hey, groovy man!
Dad joke from the period; A Teddy boy goes to a barber and asks "Can you give me a Tony Curtis?" Barber says ''coming up' takes a razor, and quickly starts to shave the Teddy boy's head. 'What are you doing, don't you know who Tony Curtis is?" "Sure, I saw him in the King and I..."
JJ, I have no power or influence, but if I did I would give you your own TV show or similar. You are so entertaining and likeable! Keep up the good work 👍🏼
My late parents were 5 and 7 when the war started in 1939 and 11 and 13 when it finished in 1945. Dad always said that it was a big adventure to boys his age. The other thing worth thinking about is the young people featured in this video will now be elderly people in their 70s and 80s
My friends' mum died a couple of years back, in her 80s, born in Switzerland and came to the UK in the 50s - wonderful lady, mentally sharp as could be right to the end. Absolutely fascinating woman that had seen so much change and I'll always remember her as someone that went out her way to talk to me about my youth-culture stuff in my teens and 20s when I was kinda-wild and always treated me with kindness - more a mother than my own, but I guess that's why I visited her regularly up to her passing. Miss you Glenda x
My brother was a teddy boy . The hairstyle was referred to as a DA (ducks arse) because that’s what it looked like at the back 😂I should add that he was the second generation of teddy boys in the early 80s. I loved you trying to create the hair. I love your videos because you have a great sense of humour and take the trouble to Google stuff.
There's some great sociological studies from this period, really in depth into the start of youth culture. Class in the UK was and still is a complicated thing - when the guy talks about "feeling slightly inferior" that was definitely something I was made to feel as a poor kid growing up in an upper-middle class area and that desire to cause trouble is a pretty standard response in a situation where everyone thinks the worst of you due to how you dress, background, whatever, but there's also the drive to push it further and really shock "them" beyond the pre-loaded expectations. The post war years were where the erosion of class structure started. It's still a thing, more so in the public versus private school system, Oxbridge and politically. Look at throwbacks like Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and Dave "porker" Cameron. I think to a degree if you want to understand UK music/youth culture you have to take a look at the class system. Notting Hill riots are a stain on British history. The Windrush generation are still screw-over, the video that mentions them here - missed the mess around them having Citizenship, something that some of them received and some of them are still fighting for (alongside financial compensation). Ex-PM Theresa May essentially decided to stall on this - for people that came over in the 1950s, that essentially means they'll probably die before seeing justice. * A lot o the perception of British food being "bad" comes from Americans stationed in the UK during WWII and after - as it said rationing went on well past the war and we had to make do with what was available and could be grown or kept in the garden, but that's pretty much what informed the idea that Brit food was bland and bad. Aside from the Great British Tradition of stealing other peoples' cuisine (see above), we have immigration to thank a lot of our pop-culture, Reggae, Ska and Two-Tone - pretty much a result of the Windrush generation and their kids. Also Jazz thanks to American GI's in the 1940s that had opportunity to spread their sound due to no segregation laws in our pubs. Incidentally, worth checking out The Battle of Bamber Bridge - where American Military Police attempted to segregate troops in British pubs in Bamber Bridge. This was a "large village" and three of the pubs responded by posting signs reading "Black Troops ONLY" - the locals were of the attitude that if you come to fight for Britain your skin-colour doesn't matter. We don't have a great history for racism in the UK, but sometimes we do the right thing and hopefully we're getting better. Now gimme some nice spicy foreign food ;)
I just realised that my red suede New Rock M-285 boots might be considered modern brothel creepers. They don't have creped soles, but the general shape harks back to the shoes of old (but much better)
My dad was a teddy boy in the fifties and sixties, he would tell tales of clashing with the Mods who in turn were rivals of the Rockers...just seems young blokes like to fight..lol.. When you started putting up your hair you looked just like my Auntie Joan...lol lol 😀✌🇬🇧
My parents were born during the blitz and my Dad was a teddy boy in his youth. I've seen photos and he looked really sharp. You needed Brylcreem for your hair, but your headphones held it well too
came in here straight after your live stream, which i have to say i only caught the end of it lol but yeah, do more of that. but this was cool as! laughed so hard when you saw the ad for brothel creepers lol such a bizarre name for a shoe though lol so yeah, you're right. keep doing what youre doing! (Y)
...the idea of "teenager" took off in the 50s. Before, ages went: You were a child and then around 14, 15 turned into an adult - with most getting jobs. A few stayed on in school/college, to become academics or to train for the actually difficult STEM jobs (hands-on science or engineering), but it was very unusual to be drifting around pretty aimless still at 18. Most got jobs around 15, 16 and did OK. Topic - is the extended pre-adult years into the 20s... good or bad? Are people being held in childhood too long? Howsabout getting into work before the hormones etc take off, rather than trying to study hard OR have dates?? Nice vid! :) PS it took c. 30 years for war damage to be cleared up, though I did see a house with unfixed bomb damage in Coventry in 1984.
Born in 1951 I was unaware of the rationing till age 5 when it was ending, times were hard but my parents made it seem ok. I grew up with mum playing the piano & dad singing the songs of Paul Robeson, Eartha Kitt & church songs. By age 10 the new music was beginning to affect me, by 15 I had a transistor radio & pirate radio stations.
Hahahaha - your attempts at the Teddy Boy hairstyle just look like a 1980's mullet! Really interesting video. I remember the re-emergence of Teddy Boy Culture in the 1970's- my teenage years. They weren't mainstream, but theye were around. Is the next video on Mods, I wonder?
In the UK there is a tendency of subcultures to blow up, fade, and then pop up again as a thriving underground scene before, some times, blowing up again. Such it is with the Teds. There was something of a rock'n'roll music and fashion resurgence in the charts in my childhood (late 70's). On one hand you had the pub rock infused Rockpile and its associates who had some elements in their sound and a more contemporary spin on the look. But also Showaddywaddy mixing early doo wop and older rock and roll embraced the look wholesale, along with the more a doo wop leaning Darts, and later Shakings Stevens and from the US, The Stay Cats. The underground scene there was more rockabilly vibes which mixed with punk aggression and became psychobilly as the 80's went on.
That interview and preceding clips looks like Chislehurst Caves, the had a club in the cave I used to in the early 60's- Your reference to Teddy Boys waering Leather jackets was much later they weren't Teddy Boys at all they were Rockers, the came the mods. Watch the film Quadrophenia to learn about them. I'm 78 I have lived through all this and it was great, even down playing on bomb sites when was 4 years old.
My Mum and Grandparents and siblings went to Leamington Spa Baptist Church and she has mentioned the 'Teddy boys picnic'. {I will ask her for more info next time I see her). The minister was James Begg also called 'Jock' (Minister there for over 30 years). I met him a few times years later. My parents were married there in 1963. Sadly the Church is no longer there being demolished to make way for a shopping area I think. Sad as I have fond memories sitting in the balcony watching the huge pipe organ being played.
Next came your mods and rockers with leather jackets and big bikes, mods with tame scooters, I was a rocker with leather skirts and on the back of bikes it was great, Jeans also came over from US which were comfy to wear.
I can remember the smell of Brylcream, everyone's father used the stuff on their hair even if they didn't have a Teddy Boy style hair cut. It wasn't an unpleasant smell.
You should watch or read Goodnight Mister Tom. It’s a story about en evacuee from London. It shows how the war affected children and highlights that child abuse happened even back then.
In the war my grandmother was sent to Wales, out of London, to safety... this is why very few children were still in London, as most of the children were in the country, scotland and wales.
The bus had been bombed from above from a plane. There are still a few remaining bomb sites in the UK and we still keep finding unexploded WW2 bombs, one was found in Northern Ireland a few weeks ago it led to 400 homes being evacuated while it was dealt with. Not long ago too one was found in Plymouth and was taken out to sea and it was then exploded at sea to cut down on the risk to people. I grew up in the 1960s and bomb sites were everywhere. In the UK one can sometimes spot a bomb site as there will be a new house built in the middle of a row of earlier houses.
The food shortages in WWII and in the decade afterwards are the main reason who so many Americans think British food is awful. A lot of them - as GIs - experienced it during the war and never realised that British groceries heavily rationed and the food was being made with whatever was available.
Re: the western influence-Richard Starkey (Ringo 😄) pre-Beatles almost emigrated to North America because of his love of western music and cowboy culture. Yes, explore mod culture next!
1947 for me. WE still had food rationing 'stamps; to 1953. Diseases were rife, like smallpox, diptheria, mumps etc etc. etc. WE skinny kids survived with little or no education.
There was a bomb site just over the road from us in mid to late 1960s but blocks of flats built where other bombs had fallen as a brick factory had been behind them in the war
mods and rockers came after the teddy boys, the mods wore suits, the rockers wore leather, they used to fight each other in gangs which is the subject of the film Brighton rock,.
"...the civilian death toll rose to 70,000 in Britain, largely [sic] due to German bombing raids during the blitz" ? WTF else would civilians be dying from in those numbers? Hay fever? Winter colds? Ingrown toenails? German measles?
It's the Rockers of the 60's that were the bikers wearing leathers......they were juxtaposed by the Mods...........check out the movie/rock opera "Quadrophenia" music by Pete Townsend of THE WHO
Teddy boys are associated with Flick Knives but this was more myth than truth. In fact most would carry a metal comb which they would sharpen up on the tooth side and giving them an edge that then could be used for slashing faces. It would leave a wound that would be very hard to close up with stitches and therefore leave a very thick scar.
i guess the new video when you react to it will involve mods and rockers - rockers were where the fashion evolved into the leather that you talked about whereas mods were the look popularised by the who amongst others (think parkas and raf logos) - famously when ringo was asked whether he was a mod or a rocker he replied 'a mocker' but i don't recall whether this was his own line in a press conference, or given to him in the hard day's night film press conference set up
My Granddad was in a reserved occupation during the war so didn't get called up to the army until older men got demobbed and returned to their jobs. This means there was a gap between my Dad, born when Granddad returned after an extended tour of North Africa, the middle east and the med in uniform and my Auntie born during the war. This meant she was the right age for Rock n Roll and Teddy Boys and my Dad the right age to zoom around on a scooter as a Mod. So my Auntie was one of those Teddy Girls and my uncle a full on Teddy Boy. Even when I was a kid people in full Edwardian drape jackets and drain pipes would worship him like he was some sort of hero. Which he was to the Teds who came later because he was apparently the hardest of all the local Teds back in the 50's and the blindness in his one eye was caused by street fighting. To me he's just my uncle. He's suffering with dementia now but my memories of walking through town with him when he was in his forties and seeing everyone from original Teds (who kept the their quiffs right up until the end if they kept their hair) to Rockabily revivalists paying their respects to him when I was a kid.
Don't forget also before the 2nd WW the word teenager never existed, people went from childhood to adulthood in manner and dress code. Then the shit hit the fan lolllll i remember my mum telling us as kids that it was impossible for a man to grow hair past their collar so if it was longer then it was a wig pmsllllllllllllllllllllllll
@ JJLA you really need to watch the Rutles Movie at some point, even if only for your own amusement. All You Need Is Cash. a monty-pythonesque parody of the Beatles, with some big-name cameos. they do the beatles better than the beatles
Not to make light of the British civilian losses through German bombing raids during WW II, but just my area of Germany, around the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, had pretty much the same amount of casualties caused by British and American bombers. In some cities, 90% of housing was destroyed -- and we're still digging up bombs every week that need to be defused. On 12 March 1945, my hometown suffered the heaviest bombing raid that was ever flown over a European city during all of WW II. Over 1000 British planes dropped more than 4800 bombs and mines over a city where the downtown area had already been completely destroyed during the massive attack on 6/7 October 1944 (one of my great-aunts, a Red Cross nurse, got caught up in that; she barely survived). During the night before October 9, 1943, the city of Hannover (further north) experienced the heaviest single bombing raid of the whole war -- 261.000 bombs were dropped over the city, killing 1.245 people and leaving just a field of rubble behind. Don't get me wrong, I get that this was war, that Germany started it. But German civilians -- many of which weren't Nazis -- suffered too, and these numbers often tend to get overlooked, if not forgotten, by the victors.
The Mod,s and the Rockers next
Scooters and motorbikes
Quadraphenia was a formative film
Look for the film Quadraphenia
the hairstyle was called a DA (Ducks Arse) the back of your head should look like the back of a duck (sides combed back and into the centre)
Like Trump’s😂😂😂
Rationing didn’t end until the 50’s but it may surprise you to know that supplies to Britain from the USA on lease lend during WWII were not finally paid until 2006.
You may find it interesting to find videos about The Blitz when British cities endured nightly bombings for over 8 months from 7 Sept 1940 to 11 May 1941
Some back combing and Brylcreem and that quiff would soon be licked into shape.
My Mum was born in ‘46 and had quite vivid memories of playing in the bomb site rubble next to her primary school.
I am much younger than that and I too played in bomb sites. We used to think we had found treasure when in fact it was probably shattered toilets and crockery!
My father was a teddy boy. With the brylcream hair and winkle picker shoes. And lovely suits. Very handsome little bugger in his younger days. Rest his soul.😊❤
Yep , the Mods and Rockers next ...
I was born in 1949 in Ireland and food rationing went way on into the fifties. I will never forget the first time I had a banana. Utter bliss!
My much older brother always told me that he was 10 when he first tasted a banana, he was born 1948 in Staffs.
@@barbara184 Oh thank you so much for that! MY much older brother was in the RAF during the occupation of Berlin after the war and when he had leave he would bring bitter-lemon Spangles to me as a treat. He also bought me a German electric train set which I had for years and years. He died a few years ago miserably of Parkingson's disease. Hey ho.
My mother’s younger sister was terrified when she first saw a banana 🍌 😂. Belfast was blitzed too and children were evacuated as was my mother and her family. My grandfather was an ARP warden and stayed behind and saw the building behind their home which was a tall building homing the military ladies bombed and they all perished. Lots of places were targets for the Germans not just London. My late uncles were all Teddy boys and the youngest couldn’t get his to slick back so his sister permed the front. 😂
I appreciate you highlighting the creator of the source video
My dad was a scouser born in 1934. As a kid, he and his mates played on the bomb sites and collected and swapped shrapnel. Far from being traumatised, they saw it as a big adventure… I suppose they didn’t know any different. This film is a little London-centric, Liverpool was badly bombed being a strategic port city as were many large towns and cities such as Coventry. The whole country suffered from the effects of war in Europe. Many bomb sites were not cleared until the 1970s and 80s.
And they were mostly replaced with concrete buildings, known typically as brutalist architecture. Coventry has lots of it still, including its station which is now listed. Erith near where I grew up in South London was almost entirely concrete by the 70s and 80s, not giving way until the 2000s in a lot of cases, with the high rise flats coming down.
@@bionicgeekgrrl Born in Thamesmead and now in Abbey Wood, all those building are being/have been replaced but what's been put in their place is just as ugly unfortunately.
I am lady in my 70s i live in the uk Yorkshire and love watching your shows OH and you did suit teddy boy hair style 🙂
Hair ..... you need Brylcreem !
" Brylcreem.. a little dab'll do ya!"
Brylcreem, a little dab a'l do yer,
Brylcreem, you'll look so debonair.
Brylcreem, the girls 'll all pursue yer,
They love to get their finger in your hair.
I remember being thrown out of a cinema for dancing in the aisle to Bill Haley and the Comets. me and a couple of hundred other kids! Was great fun.
Dear JJLA, that was your best vid so far by some margin. I loved you messing about with your hair but your understanding analyses and it's parallels of the right here and now is creatively expressed. Your description is a funny and articulate entertaining way and is very appealing. I needed this so very much today. This is the reason I watch your output everyday, this is much appreciated and thank you so very much for making my day and providing a meaningful difference, especially at a time when we need to know, all lives on this small planet matter.🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉xxx
My mother grew up in London during the war. Things she saw and lived through would warp anyone, like a lot of the children who lived in London during this time she died of cancer in her forty’s.
"Where they bombing them with buses?". Classic!!
As the chocolate bar advert said, nothing fills a hole like a double decker.
@@stephenleader-s9x not a Marrianne Faithfull quote 🤣
Spike Milligan's Uncle suggested to Air Marshal Harris that we should drop wooden mushrooms on Germany to prove that after 5 days of war British Craftsmanship still flourished. They were returned with a note saying dropping wooden mushrooms may cause unnecessary injury - Spike Milligan in "Hitlar and my part in his downfall."
@@wulfgold Not according to Mick Jagger.
I was born in1947 and loved playing on the bomb sites in Dover.
My father born 1939 was a Ted and still had the kiss curl and DA until the day he died aged 73
Loved your attempt at the hair do.
The ‘Teddy Boy’ with Vivienne Westwood in her shop Let it Rock was her partner, the legendary Malcolm McLaren
Go with a mohawk, hair is long enough.
Personally I use a hairspray called "got2b glued" holds on like super glue but for hair.
One of your most interesting videos yet, JJLA!
The bombed out sites were still around in the 70s in London. I remember from my childhood. It wasn't until the 1980s that they were finally redeveloped .
Shady used car dealers often set up business on these sites, to the extent that the term "bomb site dealership" entered common parlance.
That was interesting..it only clicked in my brain that Teddy came from Edward from watching this...lol. I hope you react to the next part with the Mods and Rockers.
Some of the acts from the fifties you saw
Marty Wilde - Kim Wilde's dad - Kids in America etc.
Joe Brown - I think he was an influence on the Beatles along with Lonny Donagan. He is Sam Brown's dad - hit with "Stop", she also appeared a lot on Jools Holland shows as backing vocals.
Tommy Steel - Britain's first Rock & Roll star, later actor and went into West End, famous for the role of Kipps in Half a Sixpence.
The 2 i''s bar (coffee) was a famous place in these scenes.
the generatin before mine looked on bomb sites as adventure play grounds. as a child things were beginning to get tired up but still houses to play in
Hippies came from the earlier Beatniks. Bristol in the late 60's still had many bomb sites around the centre.
My Dad was a Teddy Boy, and I remember him waxing lyrical about his D.A. haircut, which stood for Ducks Arse, and described how it looked from the back.🦆 Pretty nifty in his Winklepickers on the dance floor too.
Loved this video reminded me of what we studied in GCSE history, it was our coursework module 1950's & 60's. That was when I learnt about The Beatles too (I had heard of them but never knew much or heard their songs, to my knowledge. Although I quickly realised I had heard some of their music just didn't realise it was theirs. My parents aren't really Beatles fans).
Another entertaining watch, thank you. Even when I have already watched the clip, you add just the right sauce to make it fresh and new. I do believe I could watch you reacting to a fork.
At 21:06 the car in the background is a Ford Prefect. I had one, it was my first car!
mine was a zephyr, rusty POS never worked when i was going on dates, thing would only start after you punched the dash a couple times, glad i moved on from that to a mk1 mexico
Yes there was rationing in the early fifties. I lived in a small town in Yorkshire and remember, when running an errand for my mother, having to take a ration card to the grocery store, along with the money, to get what she wanted. I remember seeing a couple of Teddy Boys when I was walking to school. I gave them a wide berth because I associated them with violence. Don’t know why, as a nine year old, I would know to be wary, but I was.
I remember wearing brothel creepers in the 70's, very comfortable.
That was fascinating. I never knew of the connection between "Teddy Boys"and "Edwardian". I can remember Teddy boys in the late 50s and early 60s hanging around in cities, but I never saw any in the more provincal smaller towns. There was no mention of the winklepicker shoes, perhaps that was more of a Mod thing.
JJ had a Misfits Devillock for a short second lol
Wow Headphones used as an Alice Band, JJ That is class.
Another subculture from the mid 70s and still surviving mostly underground until today is the Northern Soul scene, a good documentary to watch is 'Northern Soul - This Is England'.
From an old Mod, who had a Ted next door Brothel Creepers 3/4 coats bright colours blue or maroon or red with velvet collars and pocket flaps and two doors away a teddy girl, girly girl that is, who wore poodle skirts pencil skirts and 3/4 length 'Capris' slacks with stiletto heels! I remember to this day hearing click clack click clack as she often ran for the bus - - it sort of merged with the Mods which I became - - though with Rocker friends so hey, groovy man!
Looking good brother! 👍 One love from Scotland. 💙
Dad joke from the period;
A Teddy boy goes to a barber and asks "Can you give me a Tony Curtis?"
Barber says ''coming up' takes a razor, and quickly starts to shave the Teddy boy's head.
'What are you doing, don't you know who Tony Curtis is?"
"Sure, I saw him in the King and I..."
??? Tony Curtis wasn't in The King and I. I think you're thinking of Yul Bryner.
@@williamdom3814 Umm.. that's the joke 🤣
@@williamdom3814 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@williamdom3814you need to reply back mate😂
my Dad was a Teddy Boy in the revival in the 1970s. he looked like a member of Shawadywaddy.
Your hair efforts were hilarious. Another top reaction JJLA.
Hey, my hometown Penge on that ration book at 4:18!
God bless Florida God bless America and God bless Rock n Roll 😊 UK 🇬🇧 loves y'all ❤️
JJ, I have no power or influence, but if I did I would give you your own TV show or similar. You are so entertaining and likeable! Keep up the good work 👍🏼
My late parents were 5 and 7 when the war started in 1939 and 11 and 13 when it finished in 1945. Dad always said that it was a big adventure to boys his age. The other thing worth thinking about is the young people featured in this video will now be elderly people in their 70s and 80s
My friends' mum died a couple of years back, in her 80s, born in Switzerland and came to the UK in the 50s - wonderful lady, mentally sharp as could be right to the end. Absolutely fascinating woman that had seen so much change and I'll always remember her as someone that went out her way to talk to me about my youth-culture stuff in my teens and 20s when I was kinda-wild and always treated me with kindness - more a mother than my own, but I guess that's why I visited her regularly up to her passing.
Miss you Glenda x
My brother was a teddy boy . The hairstyle was referred to as a DA (ducks arse) because that’s what it looked like at the back 😂I should add that he was the second generation of teddy boys in the early 80s. I loved you trying to create the hair. I love your videos because you have a great sense of humour and take the trouble to Google stuff.
My brother had a Tony Curtis...but only when when dad wasn,t around.😄
Some of the Teddy Boys carried cut throat razers as a weapon.
There's some great sociological studies from this period, really in depth into the start of youth culture.
Class in the UK was and still is a complicated thing - when the guy talks about "feeling slightly inferior" that was definitely something I was made to feel as a poor kid growing up in an upper-middle class area and that desire to cause trouble is a pretty standard response in a situation where everyone thinks the worst of you due to how you dress, background, whatever, but there's also the drive to push it further and really shock "them" beyond the pre-loaded expectations.
The post war years were where the erosion of class structure started. It's still a thing, more so in the public versus private school system, Oxbridge and politically. Look at throwbacks like Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and Dave "porker" Cameron. I think to a degree if you want to understand UK music/youth culture you have to take a look at the class system.
Notting Hill riots are a stain on British history. The Windrush generation are still screw-over, the video that mentions them here - missed the mess around them having Citizenship, something that some of them received and some of them are still fighting for (alongside financial compensation). Ex-PM Theresa May essentially decided to stall on this - for people that came over in the 1950s, that essentially means they'll probably die before seeing justice.
* A lot o the perception of British food being "bad" comes from Americans stationed in the UK during WWII and after - as it said rationing went on well past the war and we had to make do with what was available and could be grown or kept in the garden, but that's pretty much what informed the idea that Brit food was bland and bad.
Aside from the Great British Tradition of stealing other peoples' cuisine (see above), we have immigration to thank a lot of our pop-culture, Reggae, Ska and Two-Tone - pretty much a result of the Windrush generation and their kids. Also Jazz thanks to American GI's in the 1940s that had opportunity to spread their sound due to no segregation laws in our pubs.
Incidentally, worth checking out The Battle of Bamber Bridge - where American Military Police attempted to segregate troops in British pubs in Bamber Bridge. This was a "large village" and three of the pubs responded by posting signs reading "Black Troops ONLY" - the locals were of the attitude that if you come to fight for Britain your skin-colour doesn't matter. We don't have a great history for racism in the UK, but sometimes we do the right thing and hopefully we're getting better. Now gimme some nice spicy foreign food ;)
JJLA I never realised you had such amazing hair! I'm heading off to that channel now as it looks interesting!
Really enjoyed this video. Love Rockabilly 🎵
I just realised that my red suede New Rock M-285 boots might be considered modern brothel creepers.
They don't have creped soles, but the general shape harks back to the shoes of old (but much better)
My dad was a teddy boy in the fifties and sixties, he would tell tales of clashing with the Mods who in turn were rivals of the Rockers...just seems young blokes like to fight..lol..
When you started putting up your hair you looked just like my Auntie Joan...lol lol 😀✌🇬🇧
For the hair you need a few lbs of axle grease. Preferably already heavily used.
My parents were born during the blitz and my Dad was a teddy boy in his youth. I've seen photos and he looked really sharp.
You needed Brylcreem for your hair, but your headphones held it well too
came in here straight after your live stream, which i have to say i only caught the end of it lol but yeah, do more of that. but this was cool as! laughed so hard when you saw the ad for brothel creepers lol such a bizarre name for a shoe though lol so yeah, you're right. keep doing what youre doing! (Y)
Lonnie Donnegan! Skiffle king and great songwriter - check out his song Never Gonna fall in love written for Tom Jones. Beautiful
"Were they bombing them with buses?" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You were correct that the photo after Bill Hayley was Ringo Starr, the next photo is John and Cynthia sitting on a car
...the idea of "teenager" took off in the 50s. Before, ages went: You were a child and then around 14, 15 turned into an adult - with most getting jobs. A few stayed on in school/college, to become academics or to train for the actually difficult STEM jobs (hands-on science or engineering), but it was very unusual to be drifting around pretty aimless still at 18. Most got jobs around 15, 16 and did OK.
Topic - is the extended pre-adult years into the 20s... good or bad? Are people being held in childhood too long? Howsabout getting into work before the hormones etc take off, rather than trying to study hard OR have dates??
Nice vid! :)
PS it took c. 30 years for war damage to be cleared up, though I did see a house with unfixed bomb damage in Coventry in 1984.
Learning ability is much better when we're younger, try to cram that knowledge in while you can, but you've got intellectual ability versus hormones 🤣
Born in 1951 I was unaware of the rationing till age 5 when it was ending, times were hard but my parents made it seem ok. I grew up with mum playing the piano & dad singing the songs of Paul Robeson, Eartha Kitt & church songs. By age 10 the new music was beginning to affect me, by 15 I had a transistor radio & pirate radio stations.
Hahahaha - your attempts at the Teddy Boy hairstyle just look like a 1980's mullet!
Really interesting video. I remember the re-emergence of Teddy Boy Culture in the 1970's- my teenage years. They weren't mainstream, but theye were around. Is the next video on Mods, I wonder?
In the UK there is a tendency of subcultures to blow up, fade, and then pop up again as a thriving underground scene before, some times, blowing up again. Such it is with the Teds. There was something of a rock'n'roll music and fashion resurgence in the charts in my childhood (late 70's). On one hand you had the pub rock infused Rockpile and its associates who had some elements in their sound and a more contemporary spin on the look. But also Showaddywaddy mixing early doo wop and older rock and roll embraced the look wholesale, along with the more a doo wop leaning Darts, and later Shakings Stevens and from the US, The Stay Cats. The underground scene there was more rockabilly vibes which mixed with punk aggression and became psychobilly as the 80's went on.
I saw that film !!! and the correct pronunciation is "Yoots"
That interview and preceding clips looks like Chislehurst Caves, the had a club in the cave I used to in the early 60's- Your reference to Teddy Boys waering Leather jackets was much later they weren't Teddy Boys at all they were Rockers, the came the mods. Watch the film Quadrophenia to learn about them. I'm 78 I have lived through all this and it was great, even down playing on bomb sites when was 4 years old.
This was really interesting thank you seeing The Beatles so young amazing
My Mum and Grandparents and siblings went to Leamington Spa Baptist Church and she has mentioned the 'Teddy boys picnic'. {I will ask her for more info next time I see her). The minister was James Begg also called 'Jock' (Minister there for over 30 years). I met him a few times years later. My parents were married there in 1963. Sadly the Church is no longer there being demolished to make way for a shopping area I think. Sad as I have fond memories sitting in the balcony watching the huge pipe organ being played.
Next came your mods and rockers with leather jackets and big bikes, mods with tame scooters, I was a rocker with leather skirts and on the back of bikes it was great, Jeans also came over from US which were comfy to wear.
right lol so 20:46 did everyone hear Rizzo or was that just me lololol. pmsl. really enjoying this video. but had to jump down to say.
At 13m50s the guy holding the guitar is Tommy Steel :-)
My dad, born in 1940, loved to play in the bombed buildings and rubble in post-war Whitechapel (East London) with his little mates 😮
i loved this! so interesting and inspiring!
also, love your hair 😁
My dad was a Teddy Boy, in his young days. He looked ridiculous. 🤣
✌️💙🏴🇬🇧
You looked more like adjoins Aunt Mimi than a teddy 😂😂😂😂, couldn’t resist that
I can remember the smell of Brylcream, everyone's father used the stuff on their hair even if they didn't have a Teddy Boy style hair cut. It wasn't an unpleasant smell.
You should watch or read Goodnight Mister Tom. It’s a story about en evacuee from London. It shows how the war affected children and highlights that child abuse happened even back then.
In the war my grandmother was sent to Wales, out of London, to safety... this is why very few children were still in London, as most of the children were in the country, scotland and wales.
The bus had been bombed from above from a plane. There are still a few remaining bomb sites in the UK and we still keep finding unexploded WW2 bombs, one was found in Northern Ireland a few weeks ago it led to 400 homes being evacuated while it was dealt with. Not long ago too one was found in Plymouth and was taken out to sea and it was then exploded at sea to cut down on the risk to people. I grew up in the 1960s and bomb sites were everywhere. In the UK one can sometimes spot a bomb site as there will be a new house built in the middle of a row of earlier houses.
The food shortages in WWII and in the decade afterwards are the main reason who so many Americans think British food is awful. A lot of them - as GIs - experienced it during the war and never realised that British groceries heavily rationed and the food was being made with whatever was available.
We were rebuilding well into the 70s.
Nothing changes. Older people still fear the youth, forgetting they were once young. Mods are next up...
Lol - not me, the local teens are pretty well behaved - I'm more scared of stairs :(
Re: the western influence-Richard Starkey (Ringo 😄) pre-Beatles almost emigrated to North America because of his love of western music and cowboy culture.
Yes, explore mod culture next!
1947 for me. WE still had food rationing 'stamps; to 1953. Diseases were rife, like smallpox, diptheria, mumps etc etc. etc. WE skinny kids survived with little or no education.
There was a bomb site just over the road from us in mid to late 1960s but blocks of flats built where other bombs had fallen as a brick factory had been behind them in the war
mods and rockers came after the teddy boys, the mods wore suits, the rockers wore leather, they used to fight each other in gangs which is the subject of the film Brighton rock,.
-Brighton Rock- Quadrophenia.
Brighton Rock is about pre-war spivs and razor boys.
if you are interested in the food/living situation history, there is this bbc show "back in time for dinner". its on youtube. i found it fun to watch.
"...the civilian death toll rose to 70,000 in Britain, largely [sic] due to German bombing raids during the blitz" ? WTF else would civilians be dying from in those numbers? Hay fever? Winter colds? Ingrown toenails? German measles?
The Fly 2 was pretty good. And you killed it Iin Pulp Fiction. Mods always beat rockers tho!
It's the Rockers of the 60's that were the bikers wearing leathers......they were juxtaposed by the Mods...........check out the movie/rock opera "Quadrophenia" music by Pete Townsend of THE WHO
Teddy boys are associated with Flick Knives but this was more myth than truth. In fact most would carry a metal comb which they would sharpen up on the tooth side and giving them an edge that then could be used for slashing faces. It would leave a wound that would be very hard to close up with stitches and therefore leave a very thick scar.
i guess the new video when you react to it will involve mods and rockers - rockers were where the fashion evolved into the leather that you talked about whereas mods were the look popularised by the who amongst others (think parkas and raf logos) - famously when ringo was asked whether he was a mod or a rocker he replied 'a mocker' but i don't recall whether this was his own line in a press conference, or given to him in the hard day's night film press conference set up
My Granddad was in a reserved occupation during the war so didn't get called up to the army until older men got demobbed and returned to their jobs. This means there was a gap between my Dad, born when Granddad returned after an extended tour of North Africa, the middle east and the med in uniform and my Auntie born during the war. This meant she was the right age for Rock n Roll and Teddy Boys and my Dad the right age to zoom around on a scooter as a Mod. So my Auntie was one of those Teddy Girls and my uncle a full on Teddy Boy. Even when I was a kid people in full Edwardian drape jackets and drain pipes would worship him like he was some sort of hero. Which he was to the Teds who came later because he was apparently the hardest of all the local Teds back in the 50's and the blindness in his one eye was caused by street fighting. To me he's just my uncle. He's suffering with dementia now but my memories of walking through town with him when he was in his forties and seeing everyone from original Teds (who kept the their quiffs right up until the end if they kept their hair) to Rockabily revivalists paying their respects to him when I was a kid.
Don't forget also before the 2nd WW the word teenager never existed, people went from childhood to adulthood in manner and dress code. Then the shit hit the fan lolllll i remember my mum telling us as kids that it was impossible for a man to grow hair past their collar so if it was longer then it was a wig pmsllllllllllllllllllllllll
Please check out The Rutles. So much fun 😺👍
Mods were about the late 50's - even more into style and clothes
@ JJLA you really need to watch the Rutles Movie at some point, even if only for your own amusement. All You Need Is Cash. a monty-pythonesque parody of the Beatles, with some big-name cameos.
they do the beatles better than the beatles
Great
JJLA you have'nt just got hair - you've got tresses!!
Not to make light of the British civilian losses through German bombing raids during WW II, but just my area of Germany, around the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, had pretty much the same amount of casualties caused by British and American bombers. In some cities, 90% of housing was destroyed -- and we're still digging up bombs every week that need to be defused. On 12 March 1945, my hometown suffered the heaviest bombing raid that was ever flown over a European city during all of WW II. Over 1000 British planes dropped more than 4800 bombs and mines over a city where the downtown area had already been completely destroyed during the massive attack on 6/7 October 1944 (one of my great-aunts, a Red Cross nurse, got caught up in that; she barely survived).
During the night before October 9, 1943, the city of Hannover (further north) experienced the heaviest single bombing raid of the whole war -- 261.000 bombs were dropped over the city, killing 1.245 people and leaving just a field of rubble behind.
Don't get me wrong, I get that this was war, that Germany started it. But German civilians -- many of which weren't Nazis -- suffered too, and these numbers often tend to get overlooked, if not forgotten, by the victors.
The boy's who wore leather were called Rocker's 😂😂😂